Justification
by Rixor
Summary: Master Chief reaches Earth just in time to witness the Covenant's final cleansing of the human race. He's got to do something, but what?
1. Part I

The Master Chief walked calmly through the small corridor of the ship despite what was going on outside. Cortana patched him into the UNSC battlenet, but screened all but the transmissions sent to Admiral Stanforth. He listened as he prepped for his "launch". He knew what he had to do.  
  
He was on a small cruiser, the UNSC Justification. It was one of the newer UNSC ships, built in the last year. It was small, but packed a punch with the same MAC system her downed sister ship the Pillar of Autumn had. Even though the Pillar of Autumn was built more than forty years before the Justification. The Justification was a lot like the Pillar of Autumn, only the Justification was much bigger. She was one of the few ships that were built on Earth, to defend her, and defend her she would.  
  
Although the ship was strong, it lacked one thing the Covenant ships still held over the UNSC's head, shielding for entire ships. The UNSC figured out the shielding technology for small objects, but could not make a fusion reactor strong and small enough to fit aboard a single ship.  
  
The ship did however have incredibly powerful engines. The small cruiser had the same engines as the 5 carriers left in the fleet, despite being only 1/3 their size.  
  
Master Chief had regretted sending the people on Halo to their deaths. But he did what had to be done. All that was pointless now, he had to focus on Earth now. He entered the empty fighter bay; all the ships that should be docked were out getting turned to molten metal by the Covenant. He walked up to the window to look at Earth below.  
  
He didn't feel as much anger as he did as he watched Reach get glassed, but then again, he didn't grow up on Earth. Nonetheless, he had to save his anger for the Covenant bastards he would soon fight. He felt the ship slow down and stop. "Good," he thought, "It's time." He walked over to the door control terminal. He pulled the manual door release and braced himself against the terminal. His sound filters immediately turned on as the extremely loud decompression commenced. In the middle of decompression, he jumped out from behind the terminal and was launched out of the bay.  
  
He saw the Covenant carrier below. He had remember doing this very thing once before, but that was years ago. Cortana jammed the ship's radar, so they couldn't track him and think he was an incoming missile. The ship was traveling too fast, "Good thing for the thrusters," he thought as he activated them and started to follow the ship. He flew along side it until its pulse lasers fired at a damaged Frigate; he slipped inside the shielding when it was down to fire the pulse laser. The frigate, which was already listing towards the planet, turned to into a bright flash as the laser hit the fusion reactor. The frigate sacrificed itself not knowing its destruction would help save Earth.  
  
Now he had to be careful and find an opening. He grabbed onto the ship and tried to find an airlock or other opening, something. He finally found something, only it wasn't what he wanted, it was the main launch bay for the ship's single ship fighters. "Oh well," he said to Cortana, "it'll have to do." He landed like a ghost in the upper corner of the bay.  
  
He was unseen by any of the jackal patrols in the bay. He crept in the shadows until he found an exit. "These carriers are bigger than any Covenant ship I've ever been on," he said, "Cortana, can you get me a rough map of where the bridge is?" "Accessing ship computers-Ah, here we go." She uploaded a nav point on the Master Chief's screen. "It's a long way, try not to get us killed." Cortana said. The Master Chief smiled. He had gotten used to her witty remarks by now.  
  
He had to hurry if he was to do any good for the fleet. He now burst into a full run; he didn't care if any patrols saw him, which they did. He snuck up behind do jackals and bashed their skull in. He was halfway there. Lucky for him the bridge wasn't at the front of the ship like human ships. He met little resistance, the Covenant didn't expect any human to be onboard, nor did they know about him.  
  
He silently entered the bridge; he saw several elites in the pits below piloting the ship, and one gold elite above on the commander platform. He was barking orders to the pilots in the pits.  
  
This would be tough to get capture the bridge. Everyone was busy bombarding the planet; they might not notice him at all. The Master Chief took that chance. He was like a ghost, silent and fast, he ran up the ramp to the platform and smacked the commander in the back on the neck. The elite's shields weren't on and the Master Chief heard the satisfying crunch of its vertebrae crumble.  
  
The elites in the pits didn't hear, but they would soon become suspicious as to why they heard no barking from their commander. Master Chief jumped down into the pit on the right and killed the pilots. "Fools." he said to Cortana. He had counted on their shields being off, the Covenant thought they were safe from any humans deep inside their ship. They were safe from any normal human, but not many would call the Master Chief a normal human.  
  
He ran around and unloaded his rifle into the rest of the pilots in the other pit, who now were barking about the gunshots. "Too easy," the Master Chief said. "Get up the platform fast, more might have heard the shots." Cortana told him. He did and uploaded her into the ship's computer. She took over immediately, and locked down the bridge. "Good," Master Chief said, "now, time for the fun part." 


	2. Part II: Salvation

Cortana immediately accessed the Covenant battlenet as soon as she was inserted. The Covenant relied a great deal on this easily infiltrated network. If not for this network, the Covenant formations would be chaos and they could never execute the brilliant tactics they rely on to win a battle. Every ship was connected to it. A perfect place to plant a virus.  
  
From here, Cortana controlled every system on the ship. She immediately opened all the airlocks on board, flushing out a lot of the Covenant onboard. She knew as soon as a patrol found the bridge sealed, they would alert the crew. And they might be able to cut the power to the bridge from the reactor. After she flushed the reactor room, she proceeded with the rest of the ship. The two waited for the last jackals and elites to loosen their grips on the ship and watched them drift in space, every fluid in the body expanded from the lack of pressure. Some foolish jackals didn't exhale on the way out and their lungs exploded. Master Chief couldn't help but smile at the gruesome death of his sworn enemies.  
  
Cortana would have to act fast; the nearby cruisers may become suspicious as to why the ship's crew was sucking vacuum. Cortana had learned a lot in the past few months. Continuous battle with the Covenant and she's learned her way around their ship systems and battlenets. She even knew the commands to control minor parts of the Covenant ships. Since all Covenant ships were wired into their battlenet, some parts could be controlled if you had the right command codes, luckily, Cortana recently cracked these codes, and planned to put them to good use. She could easily infiltrate a Covenant battlenet, but she needed a way to disable it. The Covenant weren't as defensive when it came to network security as humans are. They are overly confident in their superiority to the infidels in every way. She had counted on this. She had been working for months on a way to disable or shut down their battlenet. But the enormous net was too big too be overloaded, and even if she could, she could only disable it for one ship, the others would still be able to communicate with each other.  
  
She had to buy the UNSC time, and she found the perfect way to do it. Because this tactic had never been explored before, the Covenant would never expect it. It was genius, and it took months for her to figure it out. Once received by a Covenant ship, it would send commands to all the plasma weapons onboard, telling them to charge, only they could never stop charging. One of two things could happen. The charging weapons could overload the ship's reactor causing it, in some cases, to go nuclear, and create a huge explosion that would vaporize anything within a hundred kilometers of the epicenter, but this only happened to the largest of ships with the most powerful reactors. The other event would make the weapons overcharge to the point where it fried itself, melting the weapon system itself.  
  
She uploaded the virus to the net, then contacted Admiral Stanforth. "Tell your men to get ready to blast the hell out of the Covenant," She said, "You'll see all the ships' weapons charging, but do not fire until their weapons overload, understood?" Stanforth got on the COM, "Cortana, where the hell are you? We're receiving this from a Covenant cruiser, do you mind explaining?" "Just do it Admiral, no time to explain."  
  
But before the virus had time to spread to every ship, the entire Covenant fleet began accelerating preparing to jump to slipspace. Three-fourths of the fleet had already jumped before the virus caught up to the Covenant ships that were to close to gravity wells to make slipstream. They were accelerating as the virus caught up to them. Covenant ships cannot jump to slipspace without the full power of their reactors devoted to the engines. They needed all the power they could get for the pinpoint jumps.  
  
When the weapons started charging, they were trapped in the system, unable to escape. The largest ship, a carrier, began to charge. After a minute of charging, the pent up power of the unreleased plasma energy overheated the reactor. The UNSC fleet watched in awe as Sol system was the mother of a second sun, and another, and another. The three largest carriers went out in a spectacular show of nuclear fury. The Covenant ships within 75 kilometers of the blasts fluttered as their reactors tried to sustain the shields and charging plasma at the same time. Within 50 kilometers of the blast, every ship's system failed instantly, and they too erupted into flame and suffered the same fate as so many UNSC ships had before, they were turned to molten metal. The rest of the ships within the 100 km radius struggled to abstain from the same fate their brethren had suffered.  
  
The explosions accelerated the overcharging process, the reactors couldn't handle keeping the shields up and charging the weapons at the same time. The frigates and smaller cruisers simply lost their weapons, and were still functional to some degree. Ships that still had power tried their best to escape the flames and shrapnel thrown off by the exploding Covenant ships.  
  
By this time the UNSC fleet had once again regrouped outside the Covenant formations. And concentrated their weapons on any ship that still was moving. They quickly dispatched any would-be escapees. Within minutes the humans had won, albeit not how anyone had expected, not even Cortana. Only one Covenant ship remained intact, the one from which this chaos or salvation had begun. The fleet had suffered a great deal, but was still two- hundred ships strong. Cheers of joy erupted from every human in-system. News of the failed Covenant attack was quickly sent and spread planetside. Everyone was cheering, except two. The Chief knew what happened was pure luck. He knew something worse had happened for the entire Covenant fleet to try to leave system so suddenly.  
  
Cortana accessed the navigation controls and moved the ship near lunar base, making sure the ship had friendly tags so the rest of the fleet wouldn't melt them as soon as they saw them. She scheduled the ship for a docking at lunar base as soon as possible. They would need this carrier for their mission.  
  
Whatever the reason the Covenant had for running, Cortana was sure something big had happened in their space. She decided this would be the perfect time to finally fulfil their original mission. As soon as both ships entered dock on lunar base, the carrier would be filled with the best marines and spec ops the UNSC had to offer, at least, second to the crew of the Justification. The Chief, along with Cortana, was on the carrier, analyzing the star maps and accessing any information the ship's mainframe might have to help them.  
  
Within days, their mission was ready to go, and the two ships, the Justification and the newly recommissioned Covenant carrier, the Vindication. The ships accelerated to the edge of system. They finally knew where the Covenant homeworld was. And instead of capturing a prophet, the top brass went for a last ditch effort and decided to invade the planet with the entire fleet. The two ships were going ahead for scouting and making sure it was plausible for a victory in the battle. The Vindication would arrive in system first because of its superior speed, to evaluate the Covenant fleet status.  
  
The Vindication received the go ahead by Stanforth, and the two ships began to accelerate. The Chief prepared to go into the newly installed cryo chambers. The Covenant didn't use them like the humans had to. And even though the ships were faster, it would still be 3 months to the crew until the arrived in the Covenant system.  
  
The Chief at least had some decent comrades this time. The three remaining Spartans, the ones lucky enough to be fighting the Covenant elsewhere when the attack on Reach occurred, had reunited with Master Chief and were on Earth when the attack began, they had gotten lucky twice. Because they weren't in a zone planetside that got glassed, but their luck may not keep them alive during this mission. It wasn't much of a main attack force to be attacking the core world of these ruthless zealots, but it was something, and that's all they needed.  
  
Master Chief, along with the other Spartans, would remain in their Mk. VIs while in cryo in case they had to be quick-thawed for combat. "Here we go again." Master Chief said before chamber put him to sleep for 3 months.  
  
The Vindication jumped first, then the Justification, it would 102 days before they would arrive, plenty of time for Cortana to figure out just what the hell was going on. She would be shocked upon arrival, for they never could've guessed what had happened... 


	3. Part III: The Interlopers

Orion began to wake the bridge crew from cryo sleep. He woke Captain Abrams last. "Please sit up Captain," Orion said. Orion was a "brother" of Cortana, another advanced AI that was installed into the Justification immediately after its induction. "Sit up and take a deep breath." Captain Abrams did so and the usual fluid flowed out. After 35 years in the UNSC, he was more than use to it. "Status Orion." Abrams said. "We will exit slipstream in twenty minutes," Orion added, "All ship systems optimal, the Vindication has been in system for some time now Sir, you won't believe what's happened."  
  
"By all means, tell me." Abrams ordered. "I think it'd be better to show you Captain" Orion said. "Okay, I'll be on the bridge in ten minutes." Abrams said.  
  
Captain Abrams had ten minutes to ponder what had happened. He walked over to the showers, grinning. No time to ponder, the more he pondered, the later he would get to the bridge and find out. He showered and dressed faster than he ever had in his 35 years of service. He boarded his secure elevator, and punched the key to the bridge. He was thankful his new ship was one of the experimental ones that were testing the new gravity fields. He didn't think he could stand another assignment with micro gravity.  
  
After the short lift, the doors slid open, revealing the busy bridge crew at work trying to input new coordinates. "What's going on Orion?" "Cortana has told us to input new exit coordinates, she doesn't think it's safe to exit near our previous coordinates" Orion replied. "Why?" Captain asked. "Have a look for yourself, these are images taken from the Vindication upon its exit."  
  
A screen materialized in the air in front of the Captain. It showed a vast graveyard of ships. But they weren't like anything Abrams had ever seenmost of them were Covenant. "We're exiting slipstream now Captain, due to the new coordinates." Orion said. "Understood Orion, make contact with the Vindication as soon as possible." Captain ordered.  
  
Stars fazed into existence as the ship entered normal space. The holoscreen was full of ships, only dead ones. The Vindication is going to rendezvous with us in thirty seconds. Sure enough, motes of green light began appearing a few kilometers to port. The huge ship appeared dead for a few seconds, then came to life as tons of information began pouring from it. "Patch Cortana through Orion" Abrams ordered. A multicolored face appeared in mid-air, along with Orion's armored form. "Captain, something has happened, a species more powerful and more advanced than the Covenant has decimated their fleet" Cortana added, "What you see on-screen is the result, few ships of the intruders were destroyed, this is the most intact one we've seen" Cortana and Orion were pushed to the side of the screen as the ship took up the picture. It was even stranger looking than the Covenant ships.  
  
It looked hollow, like a long tube. "I've accessed some of the Covenant ships' that still had power to their memory core, this is what I found." Cortana displayed the video. It showed one of the intruder's ships preparing to fire. The hollow tube in the middle of the ship began to glow, and the energy was released. Fifty Covenant ships imploded under the invisible pressure. "Dear God." Captain Abrams said. "Are those things on our side?" he added. "I don't know Captain, who's to say they are even aware of us. They could be another race that the Covenant thought they had exterminated. However they are oriented with us, I don't think it would be a good idea to engage any of them." Cortana said. "Agreed. So, is the planet safe for orbit?" Captain replied. "It appears so, there isn't a functional Covenant ship in the system, but there aren't any of the intruders' ships either. I don't know why, I think there's something planetside they need."  
  
'I'm going to jump near the planet and set the Vindication into orbit, I will contact you as soon as possible." Cortana said. The Covenant ship veered off and pointed towards the planet, and began accelerating then disappeared. It contacted the Justification before its image even reached the ship.  
  
"Scanning the surface. Stand by-" Cortana told Abrams. The Covenant are fighting something. Can't tell what, we'll have to go planetside. Fires everywhere, plasma craters in a few areas. Let's see what this baby can do." Cortana said.  
  
The Justification's holoscreen focused on the Vindication. It began a slow descent into the atmosphere. Its shields were off. Fire turned on and off like a light switch on the underbelly of the ship, the erupted in a constant torch as the atmosphere scorched its surface.  
  
Cortana turned from the ship's controls and looked at John. He stood there for hours now without moving. "We're going to stop in one of the glassed craters. It looks like the area with the least activity, so it will be safe." Cortana said, "Do we know what these new things look like?" John asked. "Not yet, but we have to be careful, if their ships are that powerful, they must not be too weak." she said. "Understood, I will assemble my team." he said.  
  
Cortana made one last transmission to the Justification. She told them to stay put unless she needed reinforcements or until the rest of the UNSC fleet arrived, a few minutes later she received the acknowledgement signal from Orion. Cortana would remain in the ship, John's information, including video, would be relayed to her at all times. So she could still help him and control the ship at the same time. She began preparing for the invasion.  
  
She hoped months of planning and strategizing would be wasted by this new foe. She wondered if they would be allies or another race the humans had somehow infuriated. Only time would tell she thought, only time will tell... 


	4. Part IV: Retrogress

A field of stars glimmers peacefully and silently, then disappears as the view of the galaxy overruns the twinkle of the stars. A strange object appears and moves into view. The spinning object is dwarfed as the rest of the wreck reveals the scene. Several large objects drift in and out of collisions with each other. Ice crystals light up the area for a split second. The planet near the scene burns bright as a large section of the original object burns in its atmosphere. One revolving section's surface is revealed as it rotates into the sun.  
  
The entire object is brown, in contrast to the metallic gray of the side opposite it. The view finally makes sense of the entire scene as the once chaotic sense of the disorganized fragments is realized into a partial ring. What remains resembles nothing of what it once was, it is now fragmented and decaying. Some parts looking like an unfinished skyscraper.  
  
A vague silhouette surveys the damage through the transparent metal hull of the observation deck. Its form is indistinguishable in the darkened room. It turns and walks towards the center of the room. Random light dances in the middle of the cavern-like room. The dancing light materializes into a perfect ring, Halo.  
  
The hologram of the ring gets smaller and moves to the side to make room for the updated version. A grotesque arrangement of curves appears next to Halo, accompanied by several smaller curved fragments and clouds of metallic shards. The computer identifies each large fragment to its original location in Halo.  
  
The shrouded creature turns quickly and walks out of the room as the hologram dims and dies. An opening forms in the solid wall that the alien walks through. In another room several more of these creatures are seated on top of a plateau-like structure in the center of the room. Our alien enters through another formed opening in the wall and strides towards the pedestal. When it reaches the edge, a section of floor separates and lifts it up to the top of the plateau, where it takes a seat.  
  
Once seated, its chair shakes as if it floats in mid-air. The same hologram as earlier appears in the center area inside the circle of aliens. The first one's chair replaces the hologram in the center. Its seat disappears beneath him as an unknown force lifts him above the collective of creatures. The hooded creature lifts an arm and the air in front of him explodes in light, finally calming into the previous vision of Halo. It's then replaced with the carnage of what remains of the habitat.  
  
The wrecked Halo dims and fades and is replaced with familiar forms. First, a small orange form is shown standing in the air, it then bursts to life as the hologram depicts it as firing a small weapon. Next, another creature of about the same height fires the same weapon from behind a large translucent yellow disc. The beast is pushed aside as a monster morphs into shape in the air. It carries a large metallic shield, and fires a large charged weapon. Another creature is shown, smaller than the last but larger than the first two, firing a new weapon, appearing to be of the same kind as the other weapons. Then a strange being appears, clad in metal, and yelling to others like it, this creature is shown in several forms. Some without the metal, some with the metal around their heads, some without metal around their heads.  
  
Finally a last race is shown, all resembling the others, all the same color, some large and round, some very small and fast. Holo-screens form in front of aliens watching the display of races. The aliens in the hologram show themselves in front of the observers, via their holo-screens. A battle ensues on their screens, all the creatures present. Then a last race appears, fully clad in green metal, no eyes or mouth. It decimates everything in its path except for the creatures clad in metal.  
  
The scene of the battle disappears, the green one is singled out and stands erect in the holograms. Light once again flutters next to it, a similar form is next to the green one now, much thinner than its neighbor, and no longer green, instead it's somewhat transparent. Symbols appear and flash on both of the forms, as if to designate a match.  
  
A series of objects appear. All very similar to each other, and somewhat familiar. Out of all the symmetrical and perfect ships, an ugly duckling appears. It's attacked with beams and formations of light and is shown entering the atmosphere of Halo. The scene changes to show the passing of a few days. The ring's shadow is now in a slightly different position. The same view as before, nothing is moving, Halo looks peaceful and serene despite what is happening on its war torn surface.  
  
The tranquility is broken as a blinding light floods the hologram. It dims to show a shockwave move across the center and strike the other side. The ring deforms and bends, then finally snaps and sends large pieces of the circle crashing into other parts of it. The hologram disappears to reveal the dead ring. No longer able to be called a ring.  
  
The once tranquil habitat is now scarred with craters and canyon like scratches from impacts with debris.  
  
The room is emptied as the collective is dismissed and the aliens leave the room. Only our alien remains, it walks towards the 'window'. It peers out into the junkyard that once was Halo. The shroud shadowing its face is partly disrupted by a beam of light. The bottom section of its head appears, revealing a mouth, also revealing a smile.  
  
Curved tubes carpet the Halo system. Some larger than others, together they begin moving. Motes of light dance around the fleet of ships, and the ships disappear.  
  
In another star system familiar forms drift in the shadows. Hundreds of Covenant ships are navigating the organized chaos that is the Covenant homeworld. Familiar spots of light appear and drift around, signifying the arrival of justice. The tube ships warp into view. They sit motionless, as if dead.  
  
Their images begin to fade, almost transparent. A small tube ship, lacking the tube, begins to move away from the rest of the tube fleet, toward the Covenant ships and homeworld. It's image, along with the rest of its fleets', fades until it is no longer visible.  
  
The Covenant ships go on as if they have seen nothing, and maybe they didn't. Several minutes go by until the small ship reappears on the verge of the planet's atmosphere. Looking closely at it, holes begin to form in its hull. Rounded tubes launch from the holes, and race towards the surface, heating up in the atmosphere.  
  
Planetside, inhabitants of a Covenant city stare up to see shooting stars in the middle of the day. The false stars fall until striking towers and crashing into alleys. Craters are formed from the extremely high-speed impacts. Some are buried, some are underwater, but none are damaged.  
  
At once all the pods open and hundreds of objects pour out of the opened vessels. The Covenant who were observing the descent of the pods are now covered, devoured, but worst of all being infected by the flood forms. A dull roar engulfs the city as its inhabitants scramble and scream for salvation from the hideous things. Hundreds of grunts drop their workload and run on all fours away from the sea of flood, most being trampled by elites. They run for the edge of city only to find more pods opened and pouring with flood. Some elites jump on the sides of the buildings, grabbing onto the handles and running up the side, most fall off because they haven't climbed a wall since infancy.  
  
Two hours later the city is quiet except for the occasional roar of an elite that is being torn apart. Mounds of flesh cover the flat areas. A giant column of flesh is in the center, several long limbs extend to the ground and nearby building for support. Infected elites drag around looking for dead bodies not yet utilized.  
  
The Covenant ships in orbit and in the system suddenly stop, unsure of what to do. Go to the surface and rescue their leaders and risk allowing the pest to spread even further, or stay away, letting their leaders die but keeping the flood isolated. After several minutes, movement once again engulfs the ships as the military ships race towards the planet. Thousands of dropships light up as the atmosphere catches and slows them down, flames licking at their hulls. Large explosions pepper the surface, vaporizing larger hives of the flood. The Covenant warships are launching attacks on the biggest hives.  
  
Dozens of ships enter the system and race towards the planet.  
  
A giant structure sits serenely in a green field, despite the chaos that its planet has plummeted into. It's the general shaped of a pyramid, with several layers carved out to create "shelves" where defensive emplacements are placed. At the top is a protruding column with rings of plasma weapons attached. Specks in the air grow until it they take the shape of thousands of dropships descending and landing, dumping their cargo of Covenant soldiers. Within minutes, the green of the field is no longer there. Now only the darkened mosaic of Covenant armor can be seen, the spots where the ground can be seen are worn down to dirt by the constant abuse the Covenant's hooves subject the delicate plants to.  
  
The carpet of Covenant soldiers and vehicles flows as they orient themselves to defend against a possible and probable flood attack. They wait in anticipation of an massive attack on their leaders. Some begin to wonder where their air support is.  
  
Seraphs and banshees darken the skies the larger groups eclipsing the sun. Covenant troops cheer for their comrades who've finally come to defend the holy ones against the plague that is the flood... 


End file.
